Showing results by narrator "David John" in All Categories

After narrowly escaping their doomed cruise ship and navigating treacherous waters to finally reach land, Joe and Meg Birch rapidly discover that the situation on shore is far grimmer than they had anticipated. The power is out, confirming their suspicion that an EMP destroyed the nation’s electrical grid - but the lack of electricity may be the least of their problems. Everyone in the closest city and its surrounding suburbs has vanished.

Joe and Meg Birch have saved for years to take the trip of a lifetime. On the last night of their cruise, while most of the passengers are sleep, the unthinkable occurs. A suspected electromagnetic pulse (EMP) damages most of the cruise ship's critical systems, forcing the crew to divert the remaining power to essential systems. While the massive ship struggles in rough seas, the seasick passengers grow increasingly uneasy about their situation.

The Wild Duck (Vilanden) is a tragedy with comic episodes. Ibsen himself characterized the play as a tragicomedy. It depicts ordinary life realistically instead of romantically and sentimentally, a revolutionary concept in Ibsen's time. The play is now generally acknowledged as one of Ibsen's supreme accomplishments.  

Grabbing the Brass Ring is an epic Homeric tale of a complex and enigmatic man, Richard Mansan - a front-line fighter, an adventurer, and a natural leader. In a time close to ours...on a world not unlike our own...Mansan is either blessed or cursed with the ability to clearly see the inevitable consequences of mankind's actions, choices, and hubris - a vision shared by no one else. As a result of serendipity or design, he finds himself inextricably entwined with the major leaders of the day.

In the fourth volume of the Day After Never series, Lucas and Sierra embark on a cross-country journey that takes them into the belly of the beast, where they must battle a ruthless adversary while the fate of their world hangs in the balance.

The first story featuring Ben, the lovable, humorous ex-sailor and down-at-heels rascal who can't help running into trouble. Ben is back home from the Merchant Navy, penniless as usual and looking for digs in fog-bound London. Taking shelter in an abandoned old house, he stumbles across a dead body - and scarpers. Running into a detective, Gilbert Fordyce, the reluctant Ben is persuaded to return to the house and investigate the mystery of the corpse - which promptly disappears!

Jimmy Bullard may not have had the perfect hair-do, his Granada Ghia may not have been the flashiest of cars, and he definitely didn't have a string of Page 3 girls trying to sell kiss and tell stories about him to the tabloids. But what he has in spades is a genuine love for The Beautiful Game that few of his peers can match. One of the last graduates from football's old school, Jimmy actually worked in the real world - including as a painter and decorator - before turning pro. Maybe that's why he played football with a smile on his face, always says what's on his mind, and is no stranger to a spot of mischief.

How did an 11-year-old boy from the ancient city of Split, on the Adriatic coast, who with his family left almost everything when Nazis and Fascists invaded their homeland at the beginning of World War II, grow up to be a United States soldier and a highly successful American businessman?

The premier Russian dramatist before Chekov, Alexander Ostrovsky was one of the first masters of realistic theatre. A typical example of his approach to drama, A Protégée of the Mistress is almost cinematic in its presentation. The action is represented by a series of vivid snapshots, in which Ostrovsky quickly and subtly illustrates the foibles and weaknesses of each character, and shows how they are forced into a hostile dependence on each other.

Ben, wandering hungry through the foggy back alleys of Limehouse, is spooked by news of an old man murdered in Hammersmith - and runs! He crosses a plank, slips through an iron door, and goes to sea with the coal. But so does the man who did the murder...and a very pretty lady who did not. On the way the Atlanta loses a stowaway, a pickpocket, a murderer, a supercrook, a wealthy passenger, the third officer and a lifeboat. And that is how Ben gets to Spain....

Ben knows that whenever his thumbs are itching, something 'orrible is about to happen. Sure enough, on one foggy afternoon of itchy thumbs, the hapless Ben is implicated in criminal activity by the police - the kind of mistake it isn't easy to explain. Doing a runner, Ben hides in the basement of a deserted house, where he discovers the body of a well-dressed man, shot through the head...and much more trouble than he bargained for.

Although he achieved notable success as a novelist, poet, essayist, and painter, August Strindberg is best known today as one of the first and most significant masters of naturalist theatre. Among his many dramatic works are a number of one-act plays, four of which are presented in this recording. All of the plays feature a persistent theme in Strindberg's works: the inevitable disillusion that results from intense involvement in relationships, whether they be familial, romantic or circumstantial.

Our class went to the school library for a research project. As I was looking for a book, a note that was folded up like a football flew over the top of a six-foot-high bookshelf and landed at my feet. It was a request for my friend Cindy and me to go on a double date with Randy and his best friend, Tim. The following day, a five-pound bag of sour balls mysteriously appeared in my locker, along with another note requesting a date.

Ben the tramp's uncanny knack of running into trouble is unsurpassed in the final crime thriller written for him by J. Jefferson Farjeon. On a grey afternoon he was destined never to forget, Ben sat down on a park seat and proceeded to think, not of cabbages and kings but of numbers, lucky and unlucky. But it wasn't Ben's lucky day, or that of the nondescript-looking stranger sitting at the other end of the bench - murdered before his very eyes!

In the summer of 1966, Peter Chapman was a naive 18-year-old from the Angel in North London. He was just about to enter the world of work, having flunked his A Levels and recently discovered that he would not be fulfilling his dream of becoming a professional footballer at Leyton Orient. As a young man on the brink of adulthood, he found himself in a country also on the brink of huge change - and about to have one of the most significant sporting successes in its history.

Ben the tramp, the awkward Cockney with no home and no surname, turns detective again - and runs straight into trouble. Ben encounters a dead man on a London bridge and is promptly rescued from the same fate by a posh lady in a limousine. But like most posh ladies of Ben's acquaintance, this one isn't what she seems.

Four more shows from the groundbreaking BBC Radio series. Described by Barry Took as 'A kaleidoscope of funny voices, catch phrase and innuendo revolving at breakneck speed and with a complete disregard for logic', I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again pre-dated I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and showcased the comic talents of Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graeme Garden, David Hatch, Jo Kendall, and Bill Oddie.

Due to popular demand, and after a long break, here is a fifth volume of episodes from the irreverent radio comedy series that ran between 1964 and 1973. Starring John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, David Hatch, Jo Kendall, and Bill Oddie, ISIRTA is a mix of quick-fire sketches, bad puns, humorous songs, and TV and cinema parodies. It quickly developed a cult following, and was the forerunner of The Goodies and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

Tired of being homeless and down on his luck, the incorrigible Ben has taken a job as a stoker on a cruise ship. But his luck doesn't last long when they are all shipwrecked in the Pacific. Seen through Ben's eyes, the uncharted island is a hive of cannibals, mumbo jumbo, and gals who are more nearly naked than any he has ever seen. And every time he tries to bluff his way out of a situation, he just bluffs himself further in, somehow convincing the natives that he has godlike powers....

With his usual knack of getting into trouble, Ben the tramp finds himself hunted by the law and the lawless in this breathless adventure. Returning home to his Cockney roots after a trip to Spain, Ben meets a mysterious stranger on a cross-Channel steamer and is promised a job. On arrival at Southampton, they take a taxi. Ben gets out to post a letter but on returning to the cab finds the stranger has been murdered!